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Saturday, March 2, 2013

We Are Never Alone: Honoring Our Departed Brothers

As a Lodge Secretary, I can tell you that one of the most important
duties I perform is reporting the passing of a Brother to the Brethren,
and when the family requests it, helping to organize the Masonic Funeral
Rites. I wanted to tell you a story about an experience I had a few
months ago that demonstrated just how important Masons take this final
responsibility to our Brothers.

I received notice one
evening some months ago that one of our members had passed away. He was
in his 90s, and hadn't been to lodge in years. Only a few of our
members were old enough to remember him, but Masonry had been a very
important part of his life in his younger years and he'd been very
active in the lodge, and in the Shriners. The family requested the
Masonic Rites performed after the visitation (that's generally how its
done where I'm from), and we were happy to do so.

We
never have a problem turning out a good showing for the Masonic Funeral
Rites. In fact, we have a regular group that performs the Rites with
great skill. If you've never seen a Masonic Funeral Rite, it's probably
one of the most emotionally moving and meaningful ceremonies you're
ever likely to see. In addition to the Rites, the family needed some help with another detail. They wanted to know if I could line up some pall
bearers as well.

It's a wonderful thing to live a
long and active life, but one of the costs of living so long is that
very often you outlive all your friends, much of your family, and
sometimes even your children--and that was the case with this Brother. There just weren't enough close friends and family left.

The funeral was during the day, and during the middle
of the week. To be honest, I was a little concerned about the request
when I first agreed to line up six Masons. We're a small lodge in a small Midwestern town. I knew most of our members
who would be available for the funeral weren't much younger than the
Brother who passed away, and those who were able worked during the day.
I put the word out to Masonic Lodges far and wide that we needed pall bearers because I
knew it was going to be tough to find able-bodied Masons during the
workday.

But I was completely wrong about that. I needn't have
cast my nets so far and wide--within an hour I had my six lined up and
about another dozen on standby. We wound up with the Master of the
Lodge, Treasurer, three 33rd Degree Masons, and an Assistant Area Grand
Master as pall bearers--and three of the six missed work to attend.
That's how important that obligation is.

I learned something from that experience--I wasn't
taking that responsibility of a Master Mason seriously enough. It's easy
sometimes to skip a Masonic Funeral Rite by saying "I didn't even know
him" or "it's been a long day." But that Rite isn't just for the departed Brother--it's for the
family. And in those cases where the Brother lived a very long life, it
can be very meaningful to those family and friends that remain to see this large group of Masons
show up dressed in suits and wearing white aprons and gloves, many of
which never knew the deceased, and perform this touching tribute in his
memory. It leaves a long and lasting impression on them.

It's not a task, and it's not a chore--it's an honor.
And it's comforting to know that when our time comes, the same will be
done for us. As my new friend and Brother Robert Herd said, "In Brotherhood we find comfort in knowing we are not alone, even upon the occasion of our death."

I published this piece a few weeks ago on the Midnight Freemasons blog, and I thought I'd share it here as well. And by the way, the Midnight Freemasons blog if you aren't following it is worth your attention--you should check it out. I'd like to thank Bro. Robert Herd and Living Stones Magazine again for letting me use his graphic quotation at the opening of the article.

~TEC

Todd E. Creason, 33°is an author and novelist whose work includes the award-winning historical series Famous American Freemasons. In 2011, he published his first novel One Last Shot which was followed in 2012 with a sequel A Shot After Midnight. He's currently working on the third novel in the Twin Rivers series. All of Todd E. Creason's books are sold at major online booksellers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble and are available for both Nook and Kindle.

is an author and novelist whose work includes the award-winning non-fiction historical series Famous American Freemasons and the novels One Last Shot (2011), A Shot After Midnight (2012) and Shot to Hell (2014).